We met up with the rest of our party at the intersection of
97 and Pilgrim Creek Road that was to take us to the
Brewer Creek trailhead. They were Kelly Maas, Rick
Woodin, and Jonathan Penn. In our car were Kai
Wiedman, leader, Dave Erskine, and myself. After
hearing how little sleep they'd gotten by the railroad
tracks, we were glad we couldn't find that spot the night
before.

Our guide to the Brewer Creek trailhead was the new
Fifth Season map which accurately guided us to where we
wanted to go. This was much unlike our trip of several
years ago when we diligently followed the directions on
the old map but ended up on a road that changed from bad
to worse and got out and walked. Now we know those
directions were wrong.

After leaving the cars, we hiked up the trail a bit, then cut
cross country towards the easily visible Hotlam Bolam
ridge. We looked back as we walked so we could retrace
our steps. There are horror stories of people se arching for
their cars on the way out.

Once on the snow, we strapped on our crampons and
headed up to the Hotlam Glacier, our intended route.
When we hit the glacier, we roped up into two teams.
There were plenty of crevasses, large and small, to be
found, but the snow bridges were solid and provided safe
crossings. We hoped to make it to 11,700 that night which
would put us in good position to do the summit, descend,
and drive home the next day. When we reached that spot,
we were happy to find it to be very accommodating. There
was little remodeling to do for those of us who had tents,
and there were good bivy sites for the others. A bonus was
a trickle of running water close by which saved us from
melting snow.

From our vantage point, we could look up at the ice
formations and crevasses towards the summit and down at
a storm that was threatening close by. Fortunately, it
didn't come our way.

In the morning we headed up for the summit. Kai wanted
to go up to the steeper upper end of the glacier and cross
the bergshrund. There was some concern (Kai called it
trepidation) as we could see a snow bridge but didn't
know if it would take us where we wanted to go. The other
rope team chose to go a lower route.

We had to remind ourselves that we were in California.
Kai called it a glaciated paradise! He said it was like
going window shopping but not having to buy (i.e. fall
into a 50-70 foot crevasse).

After the bergshrund, we belayed a tricky traverse which
put us in the right spot to ascend our couloir. There we
were, unroping, and looking up at 800 feet of 45 degree
imposing ice in front of us. On the way up the couloir,
Kelly suddenly appeared from the side and said that the
other two parties on his rope team weren't feeling well
and wanted to return. Kelly, coleader, graciously
volunteered to go back with them.

It seemed that the couloir would go on forever. When we
looked up it seemed that we were making very little
progress, but finally the steepness relented. The payoff
was that the summit was only 300 feet above us.

Several parties were already on top and had come up by
various routes. The weather was unbeatable but we stayed
only a little while, remembering that we had a long day
ahead of us.

Descending by almost the same route, we easily found the
car and after a quick dinner in McLeod, headed back to
the Bay Area for one of those well known PCS 2:00 a.m.
returns.